THERE is no really beautiful part of this kingdom so little known as the Peak of Derbyshire. Matlock, with its tea-garden trumpery, and mock-heroic wonders; Buxton, with its bleak hills and fashionable bathers; the truly noble Chatsworth and the venerable Haddon, engross almost all that the public generally have seen of the Peak. It is talked of as a land of mountains, which in reality are only hills; but its true beauty lies in valleys that have been created by the rending of the earth in some primeval convulsion, and which present a thousand charms to the eyes of the lover of nature. How deliciously do the crystal waters of the Wye and the Dove rush along such valleys, or dales, as they are called. With what a wild variety do the gray rocks soar up amid their woods and copses. How airily stand in the clear heavens the lofty limestone precipices, and the gray edges of rock gleam out from the bare green downs – there never called downs. What a genuine Saxon air is there cast over the population, what a Saxon bluntness salutes you in their speech!

It is into the heart of this region that we propose now to carry the reader. Let him suppose himself with us now on the road from Ashford-in-the-water to Tideswell. We are at the Bulls-Head, a little inn on that road. There is nothing to create wonder, or a suspicion of a hidden Arcadia in anything you see, but another step forward, and – there! There sinks a world of valleys at your feet. To your left lies the delicious Monsol Dale. Old Finn Hill lifts his gray head grandly over it. Hobthrush’s Castle stands bravely forth in the hollow of his side – gray, and desolate, and mysterious. The sweet Wye goes winding and sounding at his feet, amid its narrow green meadows, green as the emerald, and its dark glossy alders. Before us stretches on, equally beautiful, Cressbrook Dale; Little Edale shows its cottages from amidst its trees; and as we advance, the Mousselin-de-laine Mills stretch across the mouth of Miller’s Dale, and startle with the aspect of so much life amid so much solitude.

But our way is still onward. We resist the attraction of Cressbrook village on its lofty eminence, and plunge to the right, into Wardlow Dale. Here we are buried deep in woods, and yet behold still deeper the valley descend below us. There is an Alpine feeling upon us. We are carried once more, as in a dream, into the Saxon Switzerland. Above us stretch the boldest ranges of lofty precipices, and deep amid the woods are heard the voices of children. These come from a few workman’s houses couched at the foot of a cliff that rises high and bright amid the sun. That is Wardlow Cop; and there we mean to halt for a moment. Forwards lies a wild region of hills, and valleys, and lead mines, but forward goes no road, except such as you can make yourself through the tangled woods.

At the foot of Wardlow Cop, before this little hamlet of Bellamy Wick was built, or the glen was dignified with the name of Raven Dale, there lived a miner who had no term for his place of abode. He lived, he said, under Wardlow Cop, and that contented him.

His house was one of those little, solid, gray limestone cottages, with gray flagstone roofs which abound in the Peak. It had stood under that lofty precipice when the woods which now so densely fill the valley were but newly planted. There had been a mine near it, which had no doubt been the occasion of its erection in so solitary a place; but that mine was now worked out, and David Dunster, the miner, now worked at a mine right over the hills in Miller’s Dale. He was seldom at home, except at night, and on Sundays. His wife, besides keeping her little house, and digging and weeding in the strip of garden that lay on the steep slope above the house, hemmed in with a stone wall, also seamed stockings for a framework-knitter in Ashford, whither she went once or twice in the week.

They had three children, a boy and two girls. The boy was about eight years of age; the girls were about five and six. These children were taught their lessons of spelling and reading by the mother, amongst her other multifarious tasks; for she was one of those who are called regular plodders. She was quiet, patient, and always doing, though never in a bustle. She was not one of those who acquire a character for vast industry by doing everything in a mighty flurry, though they contrive to find time for a tolerable deal of gossip under the plea of resting a bit, and “which resting a bit” they always terminate by an exclamation that “they must be off, though, for they have a world of work to do.” Betty Dunster, on the contrary, was looked on as rather “a slow coach.” If you remarked that she was a hard-working woman, the reply was, “Well, she’s always doing – Betty’s work’s never done; but then she does na hurry hersen.” The fact was, Betty was a thin, spare woman, of no very strong constitution, but of an untiring spirit. Her pleasure and rest were, when David came home at night, to have his supper ready, and to sit down opposite to him at the little round table, and help him, giving a bit now and then to the children, that came and stood round, though they had had their suppers, and were ready for bed as soon as they had seen something of their “dad.”

David Dunster was one of those remarkably tall fellows that you see about these hills, who seem of all things the very worst made men to creep into the little mole holes on the hill sides that they call lead-mines. But David did manage to burrow under and through the hard limestone rocks as well as any of them. He was a hard-working man, though he liked a sup of beer, as most Derbyshire men do, and sometimes came home none of the soberest. He was naturally of a very hasty temper, and would fly into great rages; and if he were put out by anything in the working of the mines, or the conduct of his fellow-workmen, he would stay away from home for days, drinking at Tideswell, or the Bull’s Head at the top of Monsal Dale, or down at the Miners’ Arms at Ashford-in-the-water.

Betty Dunster bore all this patiently. She looked on these things somewhat as matters of course. At that time, and even now, how few miners do not drink and “roll a bit,” as they call it. She was, therefore, tolerant, and let the storms blow over, ready always to persuade her husband to go home and sleep off his drink and anger, but if he were too violent, leaving him till another attempt might succeed better. She was very fond of her children, and not only taught them on week days their lessons, and to help her to seam, but also took them to the Methodist Chapel in “Tidser,” as they called Tideswell, whither, whenever she could, she enticed David. David, too, in his way, was fond of the children, especially of the boy, who was called David after him. He was quite wrapped up in the lad, to use the phrase of the people in that part; in fact, he was foolishly and mischievously fond of him. He would give him beer to drink, “to make a true Briton on him,” as he said, spite of Betty’s earnest endeavor to prevent it, – telling him that he was laying the foundation in the lad of the same faults that he had himself. But David Dunster did not look on drinking as a fault at all. It was what he had been used to all his life. It was what all the miners had been used to for generations. A man was looked on as a milk-sop and a Molly Coddle, that would not take his mug of ale, and be merry with his comrades. It required the light of education, and the efforts that have been made by the Temperance Societies, to break in on this ancient custom of drinking, which, no doubt, has flourished in these hills since the Danes and other Scandinavians, bored and perforated them of old for the ores of lead and copper. To Betty Dunster’s remonstrances, and commendations of tea, David would reply, – “Botheration Betty, wench! Dunna tell me about thy tea and such-like pig’s-wesh. It’s all very well for women; but a man, Betty, a man mun ha’ a sup of real stingo, lass. He mun ha’ summut to prop his ribs out, lass, as he delves through th’ chert and tood-stone. When tha weylds th’ maundrel (the pick), and I wesh th’ dishes, tha shall ha’ th’ drink, my wench, and I’ll ha’ th’ tea. Till then, prithee let me aloon, and dunna bother me, for it’s no use. It only kicks my monkey up.”

And Betty found that it was of no use; that it did only kick his monkey up, and so she let him alone, except when she could drop in a persuasive word or two. The mill-owners at Cressbrook and Miller’s Dale had forbidden any public-house nearer than Edale, and they had more than once called the people together to point out to them the mischiefs of drinking, and the advantages to be derived from the very savings of temperance. But all these measures, though they had some effect on the mill people, had very little on the miners. They either sent to Tideswell or Edale for kegs of beer to peddle at the mines, or they went thither themselves on receiving their wages.

And let no one suppose that David Dunster was worse than his fellows; or that Betty Dunster thought her case a particularly hard one. David “was pretty much of a muchness,” according to the country phrase, with the rest of his hard-working tribe, which was, and always had been, a hard-drinking tribe; and Betty, though she wished it different, did not complain, just because it was of no use, and because she was no worse off than her neighbors.

Often when she went to “carry in her hose” to Ashford, she left the children at home by themselves. She had no alternative. They were there in that solitary valley for many hours playing alone. And to them it was not solitary. It was all that they knew of life, and that all was very pleasant to them. In spring, they hunted for bird’s-nests in the copses, and amongst the rocks and gray stones that had fallen from them. In the copses built the blackbirds and thrushes: in the rocks the firetails; and the gray wagtails in the stones, which were so exactly of their own color, as to make it difficult to see them. In summer, they gathered flowers and berries, and in the winter they played at horses, kings, and shops, and sundry other things in the house.

On one of these occasions, a bright afternoon in autumn, the three children had rambled down the glen, and found a world of amusement in being teams of horses, in making a little mine at the foot of a tall cliff, and in marching for soldiers, for they had one day – the only time in their lives – seen some soldiers go through the village of Ashford, when they had gone there with their mother, for she now and then took them with her when she had something from the shop to carry besides her bundle of hose. At length they came to the foot of an open hill which swelled to a considerable height, with a round and climbable side, on which grew a wilderness of bushes, amid which lay scattered masses of gray crag. A small winding path went up this, and they followed it. It was not long, however, before they saw something which excited their eager attention. Little David, who was the guide, and assumed to himself much importance as the protector of his sisters, exclaimed, “See here!” and springing forward, plucked a fine crimson cluster of the mountain bramble. His sisters, on seeing this, rushed on with like eagerness. They soon forsook the little winding and craggy footpath, and hurried through sinking masses of moss and dry grass, from bush to bush and place to place. They were soon far up above the valley, and almost every step revealed to them some delightful prize. The clusters of the mountain-bramble, resembling mulberries, and known only to the inhabitants of the hills, were abundant, and were rapidly devoured. The dewberry was as eagerly gathered, – its large, purple fruit passing with them for blackberries. In their hands were soon seen posies of the lovely grass of Parnassus, the mountain cistus, and the bright blue geranium.

Higher and higher the little group ascended in this quest, till the sight of the wide, naked hills, and the hawks circling round the lofty, tower-like crags over their heads, made them feel serious and somewhat afraid.

“Where are we?” asked Jane, the elder sister. “Arn’t we a long way from hom?”

“Let us go hom,” said little Nancy. “I’m afreed here;” clutching hold of Jane’s frock.

“Pho, nonsense!” said David, “what are you afreed on? I’ll tak care on you, niver fear.”

And with this he assumed a bold and defying aspect, and said, “Come along; there are nests in th’ hazzels up yonder.”

He began to mount again, but the two girls hung back and said, “Nay, David, dunna go higher; we are both afreed;” and Jane added, “It’s a long wee from hom, I’m sure.”

“And those birds screechin’ so up there; I darna go up,” added little Nancy. They were the hawks that she meant, which hovered, whimpering and screaming, about the highest cliffs. David called them little cowards, but began to descend; and, presently, seeking for berries and flowers as they descended, they regained the little winding, craggy road, and, while they were calling to each other, discovered a remarkable echo on the opposite hill side. On this they shouted to it, and laughed, and were half-frightened when it laughed and shouted again. Little Nancy said it must be an old man in the inside of the mountain; at which they were all really afraid, though David put on a big look, and said, “Nonsense! it was nothing at all.” But Jane asked how nothing at all could shout and laugh as it did? and on this little Nancy plucked her again by the frock, and said in turn, “Oh, dear, let’s go hom!”

But at this David gave a wild whoop to frighten them, and when the hill whooped again, and the sisters began to run, he burst into laughter, and the strange spectral Ha! ha! ha! that ran along the inside of the hill as it were, completed their fear, and they stopped their ears with their hands, and scuttled away down the hill. But now David seized them, and pulling their hands down from their heads, he said, “See here! what a nice place, with the stones sticking out like seats. Why it’s like a little house; let us stay and play a bit here.” It was a little hollow in the hill side surrounded by projecting stones like an amphitheatre. The sisters were still afraid, but the sight of this little hollow with its seats of crag had such a charm for them that they promised David they would stop awhile, if he would promise not to shout and awake the echo. David readily promised this, and so they sat down; David proposed to keep a school, and cut a hazel wand from a bush and began to lord it over his two scholars in a very pompous manner. The two sisters pretended to be much afraid, and to read very diligently on pieces of flat stone which they had picked up. And then David became a serjeant and was drilling them for soldiers, and stuck pieces of fern into their hair for cockades. And then, soon after, they were sheep, and he was the shepherd; and he was catching his flock and going to shear them, and made so much noise that Jane cried, “Hold! there’s the echo mocking us.”

At this they all were still. But David said, “Pho! never mind the echo; I must shear my sheep;” but just as he was seizing little Nancy to pretend to shear her with a piece of stick, Jane cried out, “Look! look! how black it’s coming down the valley there! There’s going to be a dreadful starm; let us hurry hom!”

David and Nancy both looked up, and agreed to run as fast down the hill as they could. But the next moment the driving storm swept over the hill, and the whole valley was hid in it. The three children still hurried on, but it became quite dark, and they soon lost the track, and were tossed about by the wind, so that they had difficulty to keep on their legs. Little Nancy began to cry, and the three taking hold of each other endeavored in silence to make their way homewards. But presently they all stumbled over a large stone, and fell some distance down the hill. They were not hurt, but much frightened, for they now remembered the precipices, and were afraid every minute of going over them. They now strove to find the track by going up again, but they could not find it anywhere. Sometimes they went upwards till they thought they were quite too far, and then they went downwards till they were completely bewildered; and then, like the Babes in the Wood, “They sate them down and cried.”

But ere they had sate long, they heard footsteps, and listened. They certainly heard them and shouted, but there was no answer. David shouted, “Help! fayther! mother! help!” but there was no answer. The wind swept fiercely by; the hawks whimpered from the high crags, lost in the darkness of the storm; and the rain fell, driving along icy cold. Presently, there was a gleam of light through the clouds; the hill-side became visible, and through the haze they saw a tall figure as of an old man ascending the hill. He appeared to carry two loads slung from his shoulders by a strap; a box hanging before, and a bag hanging at his back. He wound up the hill slowly and wearily, and presently he stopped, and relieving himself of his load, seated himself on a piece of crag to rest. Again David shouted, but there still was no answer. The old man sate as if no shout had been heard – immovable.

“It is a man,” said David, “and I will mak him hear;” and with that he shouted once more with all his might. But the old man made no sign of recognition. He did not even turn his head, but he took off his hat and began to wipe his brow as if warm with the ascent.

“What can it be?” said David in astonishment. “It is a man, that’s sartain. I’ll run and see.”

“Nay, nay!” shrieked the sisters. “Don’t, David! don’t! It’s perhaps the old man out of the mountain that’s been mocking us. Perhaps,” added Jane, “he only comes out in starms and darkness.”

“Stuff!” said David, “an echo isn’t a man; it’s only our own voices. I’ll see who it is;” and away he darted, spite of the poor girls’ crying in terror, “Don’t; don’t, David! Oh, don’t.”

But David was gone. He was not long in reaching the old man, who sate on his stone breathing hard, as if out of breath with his ascent, but not appearing to perceive David’s approach. The rain and the wind drove fiercely upon him, but he did not seem to mind it. David was half afraid to approach close to him, but he called out, “Help; help, mester!” The old man remained as unconscious of his presence. “Hillo!” cried David again. “Can you tell us the way down, mester?” There was no answer, and David was beginning to feel a shudder of terror run through every limb, when the clouds cleared considerably, and he suddenly exclaimed, “Why it’s old Tobias Turton of top of Edale, and he’s as deaf as a door-nail!”

In an instant, David was at his side; seized his coat to make him aware of his presence, and, on the old man perceiving him, shouted in his ear, “Which is the way down here, Mester Turton? Where’s the track?”

“Down? Weighs o’ the back?” said the old man; “ay, my lad, I was fain to sit down; it does weigh o’ th’ back, sure enough.”

“Where’s the foot-track?” shouted David again.

“Th’ foot-track? Why, what art ta doing here, my lad, in such a starm? Is’nt it David Dunster’s lad?”

David nodded. “Why, the track’s here! see;” and the old man stamped his foot. “Get down hom, my lad, as fast as thou can. What dun they do letting thee be upon th’ hills in such a dee as this?”

David nodded his thanks, and turned to descend the track, while the old man adjusting his burden again, silently and wearily recommenced his way upwards.

David shouted to his sisters as he descended, and they quickly replied. He called to them to come towards him, as he was on the track, and was afraid to quit it again. They endeavored to do this; but the darkness was now redoubled, and the wind and rain became more furious than ever. The two sisters were soon bewildered amongst the bushes, and David, who kept calling to them at intervals to direct their course towards him, soon heard them crying bitterly. At this, he forgot the necessity of keeping the track, and darting towards them, soon found them by continuing to call to them, and took their hands to lead them to the track. But they were now drenched through with the rain, and shivered with cold and fear. David with a stout heart endeavored to cheer them. He told them the track was close by, and that they would soon be at home. But though the track was not ten yards off, somehow they did not find it. Bushes and projecting rocks turned them out of their course; and owing to the confusion caused by the wind, the darkness, and their terror, they searched in vain for the track. Sometimes they thought they had found it, and went on a few paces, only to stumble over loose stones, or get entangled in the bushes.

It was now absolutely becoming night. Their terrors increased greatly. They shouted and cried aloud, in the hope of making their parents hear them. They felt sure that both father and mother must be come home; and as sure that they would be hunting for them. But they did not reflect that their parents could not tell in what direction they had gone. Both father and mother were come home, and the mother had instantly rushed out to try to find them, on perceiving that they were not in the house. She had hurried to and fro, and called – not at first supposing they would be far. But when she heard nothing of them, she ran in, and begged of her husband to join in the search. But at first David Dunster would do nothing. He was angry at them for going away from the house, and said he was too tired to go on a wild-goose chase through the plantations after them. “They are i’ th’ plantations,” said he; “they are sheltering there somewhere. Let them alone, and they’ll come home, with a good long tail behind them.”

With this piece of a child’s song of sheep, David sat down to his supper, and Betty Dunster hurried up the valley, shouting – “Children, where are you? David! Jane! Nancy! where are you?”

When she heard nothing of them, she hurried still more wildly up the hill towards the village. When she arrived there – the distance of a mile – she inquired from house to house, but no one had seen anything of them. It was clear they had not been in that direction. An alarm was thus created in the village; and several young men set out to join Mrs. Dunster in the quest. They again descended the valley towards Dunster’s house, shouting every now and then, and listening. The night was pitch dark, and the rain fell heavily; but the wind had considerably abated, and once they thought they heard a faint cry in answer to their call, far down the valley. They were right; the children had heard the shouting, and had replied to it. But they were far off. The young men shouted again, but there was no answer; and after shouting once more without success, they hastened on. When they reached David Dunster’s house, they found the door open, and no one within. They knew that David had set off in quest of the children himself, and they determined to descend the valley. The distracted mother went with them, crying silently to herself, and praying inwardly, and every now and then trying to shout. But the young men raised their strong voices above hers, and made the cliffs echo with their appeals.

Anon a voice answered them down the valley. They ran on as well as the darkness would let them, and soon found that it was David Dunster, who had been in the plantations on the other side of the valley; but hearing nothing of the lost children, now joined them. He said he had heard the cry from the hill-side farther down, that answered to their shouts, and he was sure that it was his boy David’s voice. But he had shouted again, and there had been no answer but a wild scream as of terror, that made his blood run cold.

“O God!” exclaimed the distracted mother, “what can it be? David! David! Jane! Nancy!”

There was no answer. The young man bade Betty Dunster to contain herself, and they would find the children before they went home again. All held on down the valley, and in the direction whence the voice came. Many times did the young men and the now strongly agitated father shout and listen. At length they seemed to hear voices of weeping and moaning. They listened – they were sure they heard a lamenting – it could only be the children. But why then did they not answer? On struggled the men, and Mrs. Dunster followed wildly after. Now, again, they stood and shouted, and a kind of terrified scream followed the shout.

“God in heaven!” exclaimed the mother; “what is it? There is something dreadful. My children! my children! where are you?”

“Be silent, pray do, Mrs. Dunster,” said one of the young men, “or we cannot catch the sounds so as to follow them.” They again listened, and the wailings of the children were plainly heard. The whole party pushed forward over stock and stone up the hill. They called again, and there was a cry of “Here! here! fayther! mother! where are you?”

In a few moments more the whole party had reached the children, who stood drenched with rain, and trembling violently, under a cliff that gave no shelter, but was exposed especially to the wind and rain.

“O Christ! My children!” cried the mother, wildly, struggling forwards and clasping one in her arms. “Nancy! Jane! But where is David? David! David! Oh, where is David? Where is your brother?”

The whole party was startled at not seeing the boy, and joined in a simultaneous “Where is he? Where is your brother?”

The two children only wept and trembled more violently, and burst into loud crying.

“Silence!” shouted the father. “Where is David, I tell ye? Is he lost? David, lad, where ar ta?”

All listened, but there was no answer but the renewed crying of the two girls.

“Where is the lad, then?” thundered forth the father with a terrible oath.

The two terrified children cried, “Oh, down there! down there!”

“Down where? Oh, God!” exclaimed one of the young men; “why it’s a precipice! Down there?”

At this dreadful intelligence the mother gave a wild shriek, and fell senseless on the ground. The young men caught her, and dragged her back from the edge of the precipice. The father in the same moment, furious at what he heard, seized the younger child that happened to be near him, and shaking it violently, swore he would fling it down after the lad.

He was angry with the poor children, as if they had caused the destruction of his boy. The young men seized him, and bade him think what he was about; but the man believing his boy had fallen down the precipice, was like a madman. He kicked at his wife as she lay on the ground, as if she were guilty of this calamity by leaving the children at home. He was furious against the poor girls, as if they had led their brother into danger. In his violent rage he was a perfect maniac, and the young men, pushing him away, cried shame on him. In a while, the desperate man, torn by a hurricane of passion, sate himself down on a crag, and burst into a tempest of tears, and struck his head violently with his clenched fists, and cursed himself and everybody. It was a dreadful scene.

Meantime, some of the young men had gone down below the precipice on which the children had stood, and, feeling amongst the loose stones, had found the body of poor little David. He was truly dead!

When he had heard the shout of his father, or of the young men, he had given one loud shout in answer, and saying “Come on! never fear now!” sprang forward, and was over the precipice in the dark, and flew down and was dashed to pieces. His sisters heard a rush, a faint shriek, and suddenly stopping, escaped the destruction that poor David had found.